Ludovic Righetti
Max Planck Research Group Leader

Ludovic Righetti leads the Movement Generation and Control group at the Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (Tübingen, Germany) since September 2012. Before, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Computational Learning and Motor Control Lab (University of Southern California) between March 2009 and August 2012 and a postdoctoral fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent System from Sept. 2011 to Aug. 2012. He studied at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne where he received a Diploma in Computer Sciences in 2004 and a Doctorate in Science in Nov. 2008. His doctoral thesis (made under the supervision of Prof. Auke Ijspeert) was awarded the 2010 Georges Giralt PhD Award given by the European Robotics Research Network for the best robotics thesis in Europe. His research focuses on the generation and control of movements for autonomous robots, with a special emphasis on legged locomotion and manipulation.

For more information on the Movement Generation and Control group, please check this site

A complete list of my publications (including publications prior joining MPI-IS) are available here or on Google Scholar

We have developed algorithms which enable an autonomous manipulation system to grasp a wide range of objects and to perform a certain number of manipulation tasks, such as drilling, using a stapler, unlocking a door with a key or changing a tire \cite{Righetti_AR_2013}. More generally, we are interested in providing complete integra...

Tuning and designing robotic behavior by combining elementary objective terms is a tedious task which generally consists of finding proper representations for each new skill. Inverse Optimal Control (IOC) allows, by specifying a set of basis functions (or features), to learn the right association of objective terms defining a policy...

Legged robots are expected to locomote autonomously in an uncertain and potentially dynamically changing environment. Active interaction with contacts becomes inevitable to move and apply forces in a goal directed way and withstand unpredicted changes in the environment. Therefore, we need to design algorithms that exploit interacti...

Motion generation is increasingly formalized as a large scale optimization over future outcomes of actions. For high dimensional manipulation platforms, this optimization is computationally so difficult that for a long time traditional approaches focused primarily on feasibility of the solution rather than even local optimality. Rec...

Planning dynamic behaviors for legged robots is a challenging task because the robot is subject to strong dynamic constraints due to its floating base (i.e. it can fall). It needs to take into account intermittent contacts with the environment and apply contact forces in order to move.

When developing controllers for legged robots, one assumes that important quantities like the Center of Mass of the robot (CoM), its position and orientation in space or its joint positions and velocities are know accurately to be used in feedback laws. While the estimation of such quantities is trivial in simulation, it becomes a s...

Autonomous robotic grasping is one of the pre-requisites for personal robots to become useful when assisting humans in households. Seamlessly easy for humans, it still remains a very challenging task for robots. The key problem of robotic grasping is to automatically choose an appropriate grasp configuration given an object as perce...

An important part of our research is concerned with the problem of movement representations. The way motion and contacts are represented is crucial to derive efficient planning and control algorithms, for example by significantly simplifying the underlying optimization problems. The way sensory information can be integrated to gen...

We expect autonomous legged robots to perform complex tasks in persistent interaction with an uncertain and changing environment (e.g. in a disaster relief scenario). Therefore, we need to design algorithms that can generate precise but compliant motions while optimizing the interactions with the environment. In this context, torque control algorithms often offer high performance for motion control while guaranteeing a certain level of compliance. In addition they allow for direct control of interaction forces with the environment. Recent contributions have demonstrated the relevance of torque con- trol approaches for humanoid robots, for example for balanc- ing capabilities [5, 6]. Among those we find passivity-based approaches [5] that regulate the position of the Center of Mass (CoM) by applying admissible contact forces under the quasi- static assumption. On the one hand, these approaches do not rely on a precise dynamic model of the robot while natu- rally guaranteeing robustness due to the passivity property of the controller. On the other hand the quasi-static assumption might be limiting for dynamic motions. A promising way of leveraging this limitation are control algorithms that take the full dynamic model into account [6]. However, the need for a precise dynamic model, sensor noise (particularly in the ve- locities) and limited torque bandwidth makes them more chal- lenging to implement. Moreover, it is generally required to simplify the optimization process to meet time requirements of fast control loops (typically 1 kHz on modern torque con- trolled robots). Practical evaluations of both approaches are still rare due to the lack of torque controlled humanoid plat- forms and the complexity in conducting such robot experiments.

Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robotics Systems, Chicago, IL, September 2014 (conference)

Abstract

Recently several hierarchical inverse dynamicscontrollers based on cascades of quadratic programs havebeen proposed for application on torque controlled robots.They have important theoretical benefits but have never beenimplemented on a torque controlled robot where model inaccuraciesand real-time computation requirements can beproblematic. In this contribution we present an experimentalevaluation of these algorithms in the context of balance controlfor a humanoid robot. The presented experiments demonstratethe applicability of the approach under real robot conditions(i.e. model uncertainty, estimation errors, etc). We propose asimplification of the optimization problem that allows us todecrease computation time enough to implement it in a fasttorque control loop. We implement a momentum-based balancecontroller which shows robust performance in face of unknowndisturbances, even when the robot is standing on only onefoot. In a second experiment, a tracking task is evaluatedto demonstrate the performance of the controller with morecomplicated hierarchies. Our results show that hierarchicalinverse dynamics controllers can be used for feedback controlof humanoid robots and that momentum-based balance controlcan be efficiently implemented on a real robot.

In this paper we present an architecture for autonomous manipulation. Our approach is based on the belief that contact interactions during manipulation should be exploited to improve dexterity and that optimizing motion plans is useful to create more robust and repeatable manipu- lation behaviors. We therefore propose an architecture where state of the art force/torque control and optimization-based motion planning are the core components of the system. We give a detailed description of the modules that constitute the complete system and discuss the challenges inherent to creat- ing such a system. We present experimental results for several grasping and manipulation tasks to demonstrate the perfor- mance and robustness of our approach.

The ability to grasp unknown objects still remains an unsolved problem in the robotics community. One of the challenges is to choose an appropriate grasp configu- ration, i.e., the 6D pose of the hand relative to the object and its finger configuration. In this paper, we introduce an algo- rithm that is based on the assumption that similarly shaped objects can be grasped in a similar way. It is able to synthe- size good grasp poses for unknown objects by finding the best matching object shape templates associated with previously demonstrated grasps. The grasp selection algorithm is able to improve over time by using the information of previous grasp attempts to adapt the ranking of the templates to new situa- tions. We tested our approach on two different platforms, the Willow Garage PR2 and the Barrett WAM robot, which have very different hand kinematics. Furthermore, we compared our algorithm with other grasp planners and demonstrated its superior performance. The results presented in this paper show that the algorithm is able to find good grasp configura- tions for a large set of unknown objects from a relatively small set of demonstrations, and does improve its performance over time.

Robots that are to locomote in a human like fashion requirecontrol of high degree of freedom (DOF) motions potentiallycoupled in a complex way. It remains challenging to expressthe task objective in an intuitive way and simultaneously generatefeedback gains guaranteeing some level of optimality.In response to this, a number of different simplified modelshave been developed to highlight different aspects of the humanoidâ??sdynamics that are important for specific tasks. Ashort list of some of the models used to represent a humanoidinclude the cart-table, double inverted pendulum, reactionmass pendulum, and automatically generated task specific reducedmodels [4]. These simplified models make planningeasier but come at the cost of modelling error and limitationson motion. In addition, one is tasked with finding mappingsbetween the full system to the reduced system. These mappingscan potentially destroy the intuition surrounding the useof the simplified model as they may not always behave as expected.By working with the full dynamics, one obtains anincrease in generality, accuracy, and eliminates the need formappings.

This paper introduces a framework for state estimation on a humanoid robot platform using only common proprioceptive sensors and knowledge of leg kinematics. The presented approach extends that detailed in prior work on a point-foot quadruped platform by adding the rotational constraints imposed by the humanoidâ??s flat feet. As in previous work, the proposed Extended Kalman Filter accommodates contact switching and makes no assumptions about gait or terrain, making it applicable on any humanoid platform for use in any task. A nonlinear observability analysis is performed on both the point-foot and flat-foot filters and it is concluded that the addition of rotational constraints significantly simplifies singular cases and improves the observability characteristics of the system. Results on a simulated walking dataset demonstrate the performance gain of the flat-foot filter as well as confirm the results of the presented observability analysis.

State estimation plays a crucial role in humanoid locomotion;accurate estimates of the pose and velocity of the robotâ??s baseare necessary for walking tasks. Estimation in robotics haslong been focused on mobile robot localization, where wheelodometry and exteroceptive sensor data are fused to provideestimates of absolute position and yaw. While wheeled robotsare assumed to remain stable and in contact at all times,legged locomotion inherently involves intermittent contacts.This makes stability a concern and complicates odometrybasedapproaches, distinguishing estimation for legged systemsfrom that for wheeled robots. More recent approacheson quadruped and hexapod platforms make unreasonable assumptionsabout walking gaits, assume knowledge of the terrainand use exteroceptive sensor data for corrections. However,the utility of such platforms is their potential for operationin unstructured environments in which gaits are reactive,the terrain is unknown and such sensors are unfit for use. Motivatedby the task of providing robust and generic state estimationfor humanoid robots walking on unknown terrain, weintroduce an estimation framework [1] which employs onlyproprioceptive sensors and knowledge of leg kinematics.

In Proceedings of the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Chicago, IL, October 2014 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Efficient manipulation requires contact to reduce uncertainty. The manipulation literature refers to this as funneling: a methodology for increasing reliability and robustness by leveraging haptic feedback and control of environmental interaction. However, there is a fundamental gap between traditional approaches to trajectory optimization and this concept of robustness by funneling: traditional trajectory optimizers do not discover force feedback strategies. From a POMDP perspective, these behaviors could be regarded as explicit obser- vation actions planned to sufficiently reduce uncertainty thereby enabling a task. While we are sympathetic to the full POMDP view, solving full continuous-space POMDPs in high-dimensions is hard. In this paper, we propose an alternative approach in which trajectory optimization objectives are augmented with new terms that reward uncertainty reduction through contacts, explicitly promoting funneling. This augmentation shifts the responsibility of robustness toward the actual execution of the optimized trajectories. Directly tracing trajectories through configuration space would lose all robustnessâ??dual execution achieves robustness by devising force controllers to reproduce the temporal interaction profile encoded in the dual solution of the optimization problem. This work introduces dual execution in depth and analyze its performance through robustness experiments in both simulation and on a real-world robotic platform.

The International Journal of Robotics Research, 32(3):280-298, 2013, clmc (article)

Abstract

The development of legged robots for complex environments requires controllers that guarantee both high tracking performance and compliance with the environment. More specifically the control of the contact interaction with the environment is of crucial importance to ensure stable, robust and safe motions. In this contribution we develop an inverse-dynamics controller for floating-base robots under contact constraints that can minimize any combination of linear and quadratic costs in the contact constraints and the commands. Our main result is the exact analytical derivation of the controller. Such a result is particularly relevant for legged robots as it allows us to use torque redundancy to directly optimize contact interactions. For example, given a desired locomotion behavior, we can guarantee the minimization of contact forces to reduce slipping on difficult terrains while ensuring high tracking performance of the desired motion. The main advantages of the controller are its simplicity, computational efficiency and robustness to model inaccuracies. We present detailed experimental results on simulated humanoid and quadruped robots as well as a real quadruped robot. The experiments demonstrate that the controller can greatly improve the robustness of locomotion of the robots.

In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2013, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract

We present an approach to learning objective func- tions for robotic manipulation based on inverse reinforcement learning. Our path integral inverse reinforcement learning al- gorithm can deal with high-dimensional continuous state-action spaces, and only requires local optimality of demonstrated trajectories. We use L1 regularization in order to achieve feature selection, and propose an efficient algorithm to minimize the re- sulting convex objective function. We demonstrate our approach by applying it to two core problems in robotic manipulation. First, we learn a cost function for redundancy resolution in inverse kinematics. Second, we use our method to learn a cost function over trajectories, which is then used in optimization- based motion planning for grasping and manipulation tasks. Experimental results show that our method outperforms previous algorithms in high-dimensional settings.

In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2013 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Precise kinematic forward models are important for robots to successfully perform dexterous grasping and manipula- tion tasks, especially when visual servoing is rendered infeasible due to occlusions. A lot of research has been conducted to estimate geometric and non-geometric parameters of kinematic chains to minimize reconstruction errors. However, kinematic chains can include non-linearities, e.g. due to cable stretch and motor-side encoders, that result in significantly different errors for different parts of the state space. Previous work either does not consider such non-linearities or proposes to estimate non-geometric parameters of carefully engineered models that are robot specific. We propose a data-driven approach that learns task error models that account for such unmodeled non-linearities. We argue that in the context of grasping and manipulation, it is sufficient to achieve high accuracy in the task relevant state space. We identify this relevant state space using previously executed joint configurations and learn error corrections for those. Therefore, our system is developed to generate subsequent executions that are similar to previous ones. The experiments show that our method successfully captures the non-linearities in the head kinematic chain (due to a counter- balancing spring) and the arm kinematic chains (due to cable stretch) of the considered experimental platform, see Fig. 1. The feasibility of the presented error learning approach has also been evaluated in independent DARPA ARM-S testing contributing to successfully complete 67 out of 72 grasping and manipulation tasks.

The development of legged robots for complex environments requires controllers that guarantee both high tracking performance and compliance with the environment. More specifically the control of contact interaction with the environment is of crucial importance to ensure stable, robust and safe motions. In the following, we present an inverse dynamics controller that exploits torque redundancy to directly and explicitly minimize any combination of linear and quadratic costs in the contact constraints and in the commands. Such a result is particularly relevant for legged robots as it allows to use torque redundancy to directly optimize contact interactions. For example, given a desired locomotion behavior, it can guarantee the minimization of contact forces to reduce slipping on difficult terrains while ensuring high tracking performance of the desired motion. The proposed controller is very simple and computationally efficient, and most importantly it can greatly improve the performance of legged locomotion on difficult terrains as can be seen in the experimental results.

2012

In International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), 2012, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract

In this abstract, we present an approach to learning manipulation tasks on compliant robots through re- inforcement learning. We demonstrate our approach on two different manipulation tasks: opening a door with a lever door handle, and picking up a pen off the table (Fig. 1). We show that our approach can learn the force control policies required to achieve both tasks successfully. The contributions of this work are two-fold: (1) we demonstrate that learning force con- trol policies enables compliant execution of manipu- lation tasks with increased robustness as opposed to stiff position control, and (2) we introduce a policy parameterization that uses finely discretized trajectories coupled with a cost function that ensures smoothness during exploration and learning.

In IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 2012, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract

Movement primitives as basis of movement planning and control have become
a popular topic in recent years. The key idea of movement primitives is
that a rather small set of stereotypical movements should suffice to create
a large set of complex manipulation skills. An interesting side effect of
stereotypical movement is that it also creates stereotypical sensory events,
e.g., in terms of kinesthetic variables, haptic variables, or, if processed
appropriately, visual variables. Thus, a movement primitive executed towards
a particular object in the environment will associate a large number of
sensory variables that are typical for this manipulation skill. These association
can be used to increase robustness towards perturbations, and they also allow
failure detection and switching towards other behaviors. We call such movement
primitives augmented with sensory associations {em Associative Skill Memories} (ASM).
This paper addresses how ASMs can be acquired by imitation learning and how they
can create robust manipulation skill by determining subsequent ASMs extit{online}
to achieve a particular manipulation goal. Evaluation for grasping and manipulation
with a Barrett WAM/Hand illustrate our approach.

In this paper, we derive a probabilistic registration algorithm for object modeling and tracking. In many robotics applications, such as manipulation tasks, nonvisual information about the movement of the object is available, which we will combine with the visual information. Furthermore we do not only consider observations of the object, but we also take space into account which has been observed to not be part of the object. Furthermore we are computing a posterior distribution over the relative alignment and not a point estimate as typically done in for example Iterative Closest Point (ICP). To our knowledge no existing algorithm meets these three conditions and we thus derive a novel registration algorithm in a Bayesian framework. Experimental results suggest that the proposed methods perform favorably in comparison to PCL [1] implementations of feature mapping and ICP, especially if nonvisual information is available. View full abstract

In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pages: 2379-2384, May 2012 (inproceedings)

Abstract

The ability to grasp unknown objects is an important skill for personal robots, which has been addressed by many present and past research projects, but still remains an open problem. A crucial aspect of grasping is choosing an appropriate grasp configuration, i.e. the 6d pose of the hand relative to the object and its finger configuration. Finding feasible grasp configurations for novel objects, however, is challenging because of the huge variety in shape and size of these objects. Moreover, possible configurations also depend on the specific kinematics of the robotic arm and hand in use. In this paper, we introduce a new grasp selection algorithm able to find object grasp poses based on previously demonstrated grasps. Assuming that objects with similar shapes can be grasped in a similar way, we associate to each demonstrated grasp a grasp template. The template is a local shape descriptor for a possible grasp pose and is constructed using 3d information from depth sensors. For each new object to grasp, the algorithm then finds the best grasp candidate in the library of templates. The grasp selection is also able to improve over time using the information of previous grasp attempts to adapt the ranking of the templates. We tested the algorithm on two different platforms, the Willow Garage PR2 and the Barrett WAM arm which have very different hands. Our results show that the algorithm is able to find good grasp configurations for a large set of objects from a relatively small set of demonstrations, and does indeed improve its performance over time. View full abstract

In this contribution we propose an inverse dynamics controller for a humanoid robot that exploits torque redundancy to minimize any combination of linear and quadratic costs in the contact forces and the commands. In addition the controller satisfies linear equality and inequality constraints in the contact forces and the commands such as torque limits, unilateral contacts or friction cones limits. The originality of our approach resides in the formulation of the problem as a quadratic program where we only need to solve for the control commands and where the contact forces are optimized implicitly. Furthermore, we do not need a structured representation of the dynamics of the robot (i.e. an explicit computation of the inertia matrix). It is in contrast with existing methods based on quadratic programs. The controller is then robust to uncertainty in the estimation of the dynamics model and the optimization is fast enough to be implemented in high bandwidth torque control loops that are increasingly available on humanoid platforms. We demonstrate properties of our controller with simulations of a human size humanoid robot.

Present formulations of periodic dynamic move- ment primitives (DMPs) do not encode the transient behavior required to start the rhythmic motion, although these transient movements are an important part of the rhythmic movements (i.e. when walking, there is always a first step that is very different from the subsequent ones). An ad-hoc procedure is then necessary to get the robot into the periodic motion. In this contribution we present a novel representation for rhythmic Dynamic Movement Primitives (DMPs) that encodes both the rhythmic motion and its transient behaviors. As with previously proposed DMPs, we use a dynamical system approach where an asymptotically stable limit cycle represents the periodic pattern. Transients are then represented as trajectories converg- ing towards the limit cycle, different trajectories representing varying transients from different initial conditions. Our ap- proach thus constitutes a generalization of previously proposed rhythmic DMPs. Experiments conducted on the humanoid robot ARMAR-III demonstrate the applicability of the approach for movement generation.

Developing robots capable of fine manipulation skills is of major importance in order to build truly assistive robots. These robots need to be compliant in their actuation and control in order to operate safely in human environments. Manip-ulation tasks imply complex contact interactions with the external world, and in-volve reasoning about the forces and torques to be applied. Planning under con-tact conditions is usually impractical due to computational complexity, and a lack of precise dynamics models of the environment. We present an approach to acquiring manipulation skills on compliant robots through reinforcement learn-ing. The initial position control policy for manipulation is initialized through kinesthetic demonstration. We augment this policy with a force/torque profile to be controlled in combination with the position trajectories. We use the Policy Improvement with Path Integrals (PI2) algorithm to learn these force/torque pro-files by optimizing a cost function that measures task success. We demonstrate our approach on the Barrett WAM robot arm equipped with a 6-DOF force/torque sensor on two different manipulation tasks: opening a door with a lever door handle, and picking up a pen off the table. We show that the learnt force control policies allow successful, robust execution of the tasks.

The development of agile and safe humanoid robots require controllers that guarantee both high tracking performance and compliance with the environment. More specifically, the control of contact interaction is of crucial importance for robots that will actively interact with their environment. Model-based controllers such as inverse dynamics or operational space control are very appealing as they offer both high tracking performance and compliance. However, while widely used for fully actuated systems such as manipulators, they are not yet standard controllers for legged robots such as humanoids. Indeed such robots are fundamentally different from manipulators as they are underactuated due to their floating-base and subject to switching contact constraints. In this paper we present an inverse dynamics controller for legged robots that use torque redundancy to create an optimal distribution of contact constraints. The resulting controller is able to minimize, given a desired motion, any quadratic cost of the contact constraints at each instant of time. In particular we show how this can be used to minimize tangential forces during locomotion, therefore significantly improving the locomotion of legged robots on difficult terrains. In addition to the theoretical result, we present simulations of a humanoid and a quadruped robot, as well as experiments on a real quadruped robot that demonstrate the advantages of the controller.

Applying model-free reinforcement learning to manipulation remains challeng-ing for several reasons. First, manipulation involves physical contact, which causes discontinuous cost functions. Second, in manipulation, the end-point of the movement must be chosen carefully, as it represents a grasp which must be adapted to the pose and shape of the object. Finally, there is uncertainty in the object pose, and even the most carefully planned movement may fail if the object is not at the expected position.
To address these challenges we 1) present a simplified, computationally more ef-ficient version of our model-free reinforcement learning algorithm PI2; 2) extend PI2 so that it simultaneously learns shape parameters and goal parameters of mo-tion primitives; 3) use shape and goal learning to acquire motion primitives that are robust to object pose uncertainty. We evaluate these contributions on a ma-nipulation platform consisting of a 7-DOF arm with a 4-DOF hand.

In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Shanghai, China, May 9-13, 2011, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract

Inverse dynamics controllers and operational
space controllers have proved to be very efficient for compliant
control of fully actuated robots such as fixed base manipulators.
However legged robots such as humanoids are inherently
different as they are underactuated and subject to switching external
contact constraints. Recently several methods have been
proposed to create inverse dynamics controllers and operational
space controllers for these robots. In an attempt to compare
these different approaches, we develop a general framework
for inverse dynamics control and show that these methods
lead to very similar controllers. We are then able to greatly
simplify recent whole-body controllers based on operational
space approaches using kinematic projections, bringing them
closer to efficient practical implementations. We also generalize
these controllers such that they can be optimal under an
arbitrary quadratic cost in the commands.

2010

In Proceedings of the international conference on climbing and walking robots (CLAWAR) 2010, Nagoya, Japan, Aug.31-Sept.3, 2010, clmc (inproceedings)

Abstract

The control of the interaction of legged robots with their environment is of
crucial importance in the design of locomotion controllers. We need to control
the effects of the robots movement on the contact reaction forces to prevent
slipping, for example. In this contribution, we extend a recent inverse dynamics
algorithm for floating base robots to optimize the distribution of contact forces
while achieving precise trajectory tracking. The resulting controller is algorithmically
simple as compared to other approaches. Numerical simulations show
that this result significantly increases the range of possible movements of a
humanoid robot as compared to the previous inverse dynamics algorithm. We
also present a simplification of the result for practical use on a real robot. Such
an algorithm becomes particularly relevant for agile locomotion of robots on
difficult terrains where the contacts with the environment are critical, such as
walking over rough or slippery terrain

Energy-shaping control methods have produced strong theoretical results for asymptotically stable 3D bipedal dynamic walking in the literature. In particular, geometric controlled reduction exploits robot symmetries to control momentum conservation laws that decouple the sagittal-plane dynamics, which are easier to stabilize. However, the associated control laws require high-dimensional matrix inverses multiplied with complicated energy-shaping terms, often making these control theories difficult to apply to highly-redundant humanoid robots. This paper presents a first step towards the application of energy-shaping methods on real robots by casting controlled reduction into a framework of constrained accelerations for inverse dynamics control. By representing momentum conservation laws as constraints in acceleration space, we construct a general expression for desired joint accelerations that render the constraint surface invariant. By appropriately choosing an orthogonal projection, we show that the unconstrained (reduced) dynamics are decoupled from the constrained dynamics. Any acceleration-based controller can then be used to stabilize this planar subsystem, including passivity-based methods. The resulting control law is surprisingly simple and represents a practical way to employ control theoretic stability results in robotic platforms. Simulated walking of a 3D compass-gait biped show correspondence between the new and original controllers, and simulated motions of a 16-DOF humanoid demonstrate the applicability of this method.

Our goal is to understand the principles of Perception, Action and Learning in autonomous systems that successfully interact with complex environments and to use this understanding to design future systems